Mind Maze - A Study in Time Travel
by The Hat Madder
Summary: Arthur, Francis and Ludwig have a problem on their hands after playing around with a Babylon Candle. Stuck between worlds, each must sort out their emotions towards each other before they can get back out. Was this a magical mistake, or somebody's sick way of putting an end to all fights?
1. Chapter 1

They crashed to the sand heavily, bodies scattered around the coast like stars in the sky.

He coughed once, twice. Three times, each heave whistling through his lungs, through his throat and coming out of his mouth as hoarse sighs. In his mind's eye he had seen it, dreamt it, yet it was not him who had brought them there. His blood boiled, temper flaring.

Dunkirk.

He sat up, the sand in his hair tumbling down his face onto the ground as rocks from the cliff face. His eyes and mouth and nose were full of salt-water, and burned with the gore and blood of the sea. With bloodied stumps where his fingernails once were, he crawled across the beach to his blond-headed companion, checked that he was alive, well and still breathing... and then punched him square across the jaw.

The man jolted upright, clutching his nose, and swung his free fist at the other's face. Missed, he did, and hit the floor again, the other man sat on his waist.

"Why the bloody hell did you bring us here?!" Arthur shouted, dark brows furrowed in fury as he gripped the blond's collar.

"You said to think of home, so I did!" The Frenchman bellowed, other hand moving to hide his face when the Briton's face turned a murderous puce.

"What, and your idea of my home is bloody 1940's Dunkirk?" He screamed in response.

"Your home?" Francis roared, "You just said 'home', not your home in particular! Now we're stuck between!"

"Well what the shit did you think of?"

"I wanted to go back to 1600's Paris for the renaissance!"

"We were supposed to go to modern London, you utter twat-head!"

"Va te faire foutre!"

"You fucking what?!" Arthur thundered, shaking Francis by the collar, before shoving him down into the sand. After a moment of exchanging glares, the Brit stood up, violently dusting the rest of the sand out of his hair, making his way off along the beach, wind rumpling his hair, blowing the thick, ash-blond fringe up and out of his face.

"Where are you going?" Francis called, clutching his aching chest.

"Where is it?" Arthur grumbled, kicking the sand around, sea-green eyes searching wildly.

"Where's what?"

"That damn Babylon candle. And where the shit are Ludwig and Gilbert?"

"I've got the candle here," Francis replied, pushing up into a crouching position and retrieving the black stick of wax from his pocket. "And Ludwig and Gilbert should be just over there." He pointed a long, pale finger off into the distance, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun with the hand holding the candle. His hair had gone into rats tails, some strands bleached by the salt.

They both paused, locating two figures laying down on the sand near the waves, and then they ran.

Arthur dropped to his knees beside his youngest cousin, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Oi, Ludwig."

No response. His platinum head just lolled to the side unconsciously, the open fracture in his right arm seeping more blood out onto the beaches of Dunkirk. Arthur placed his ear against his chest, relieved to hear a slow but steady and sturdy heartbeat.

Being careful of Ludwig's fractured arm, he rolled the German onto his side into the foetal position, and pulled out the spare dressing and bandages he'd stuffed into his pockets. He always came prepared, just in case something went wrong. He removed his belt. Sticking a stiff upper lip, Arthur sucked in a deep breath, and wrapped the brown leather belt around the top of Ludwig's arm, like a tourniquet. He took his cousin's arm just above the wrist, and placed his palm just shy of the protruding radius.

"Sorry, mate. This might sting when you wake up." He apologised, and began to pull and shove, placing the bone back inside of Ludwig's arm. He dressed and bandaged it, securing it tightly with one of the safety pins attached to his collar. "Francis!" Arthur shouted across the beach to where the Frenchman was crouched down by Arthur's elder cousin, his best friend.

No answer. Fed up with the lack of response he was gaining, he left Ludwig for a moment to see what was taking the other so long.

When he saw it, he was almost sick.

Doused in blood, with his eyes wide open, lay Gilbert's motionless form. A wave of nausea crashed over the Brit and he stumbled backwards, stomach churning, bile rising in his throat.

"Dear God..." He gagged.

Francis was hunched over, his blond head buried in his hands.

"Why did this have to happen?" He murmured solemnly, "All because of a stupid mistake I made..."

"And what about Ludwig? What do we say when he wakes up? We can't let him see his brother like this."

"We don't have the time to bury him. Somebody's coming along the beach over there. Get Ludwig and light the candle."

"Where do we go?"

"Anywhere that isn't here. Hurry; they're coming."

Jogging along the beach and reluctantly away from Gilbert's body, Arthur threw himself down beside Ludwig, braced an arm around his chest, and readied the candle, Francis' arms around his shoulders.

"We're going to 1500's Munich, Bavaria. Bugger my problems, for now - Ludwig's got a bigger one on his hands."

With that, Francis lit the candle in Arthur's hand, and clung on for dear life.

They were gone in a matter of seconds.


	2. Chapter 2

The change in atmosphere and pressure in the air roused him to consciousness along with the near vomit-inducing pain in his right arm. Hauling himself to his left elbow, propped up against a rolled up jacket, he squinted through the early morning, narrow streaks of sunlight frying his brains.

 _Where was he?_

Ah, wait. No, he knew where he was. He recognised this place from his childhood. His mind had shown him this place numerous times while sleeping. He used to go here in his mind palace when things began to fall apart. It was popular for him when travelling around the 1900's. Roderich had taken over work for him while he went on the sick-leave due to stress and migraines.

He was in his castle, again. Ludwig's castle - his imaginative, mad counterpart. He'd worked hard on grounding himself since those times.

He lay on the tiled floors, turning his head to the right.

Arthur and Francis were huddled together in the far right of the room, likely unaware of the close proximity between them. Francis was slumped up against the wall beside Arthur, whose head had fallen at an awkward angle to the Frenchman's shoulder. The bearded blond had covered his sleeping face with a plain, red scarf, and the sandy-haired man wore but a simple frown.

He lay there for a while longer before getting up, nursing his broken arm as he walked the corridors.

A sudden thought dawned on him.

Where was Gilbert?

He froze in his tracks, before retreating into the hall again, scanning the area.

"Bruderlein?" He murmured, gunmetal-blue eyes always calculating. All was silent, and Gilbert was nowhere in sight. Ludwig's priorities were set in stone, now.

 _I need to find my brother._

Furrowing his brow, he stood and began to roam around the palace, searching, rummaging and rifling through various drawers, looking for the documents. His brother's documents. Prussia.

 _His fingers twitched as though scanning through a filing cabinet, eyes moving rapidly behind their closed lids._

 _"_ Shit," Arthur murmured, his mouth hanging open a little in disbelief, "His mind has picked up that something is missing, and remarkably quickly."

Francis placed his palm on Ludwig's sweating brow.

"Keep him under. It's for his own good."

"He needs to complete this new layer, since we bollocked up the second layer. Consider that last layer - the beach - purgatory. If we can't kick him hard enough when he's ready to wake up, he might end up stuck." Arthur warned.

"Still, how weren't we allowed to enter Germany? I thought the candle was fully charged."

"Obviously, Ludwig's mind blocked us out and kicked us back to the first layer."

"But why?"

"I don't have a clue. Obviously, there's something in him that he _doesn't_ want us to see. Why else would his mind shut us back out?" Arthur provided, supporting Ludwig's head. The Brit was clearly becoming stressed again, as shown by the way his face was beginning to redden like a ripe apple.

"So we've gathered so far that each layer is somebody's mind. New person each time you light the candle."

"Exactly."

"And that it is possible to die?"

"As shown with Gilbert. Horrible, yes, but valuable to know. Perhaps it will teach you to be more careful."

"No more arguments, please, Arthur. I'm too tired."

The Brit faltered, expression falling.

"What?" Francis replied, quirking a thin, blond brow.

"You're tired... Hold on, I just thought of something."

"That's a first."

"Don't start, I'll kick your arse." Arthur stated, beginning to pace away from Ludwig, wandering around the street, to the middle of the road. 1880's Paris. He looked up at the sky. "Can you feel tired in dreams?" He tilted his top hat back and straightened out his waistcoat.

Francis' expression softened. "What are you implying?"

"Lie down, and try to sleep. Perhaps he'll let you in. If you can make yourself aware that you're dreaming, then anything is possible. Do whatever it takes to get into his mind. Mess with the physics of his world, but under all circumstances, do not let him become aware that you're the one toying with him. Ludwig's smart - his mind will target the intrusion quickly if you're too forwards with him."

"And if he finds me?"

"If that happens, kick yourself, and when you wake up, kick him. If you can't wake up, that's it. He'll trap you."

"And as for ourselves? What if there are already figures of ourselves in his mind?"

"If you happened to see yourself in his mind, you don't have to worry; every human's idea of themselves is so different from the way they actually appear that if they saw themselves in real life, they wouldn't recognize themselves."

"You _will_ wake me up, won't you?" Francis asked cautiously, forget-me-not blue eyes sparkling a little. Arthur sighed.

"I can't promise that it will work, but I will try. I'm not going to let you die, Francis."

"You _are_ the real Arthur, right? You're not the one conjured up by my head?"

"What makes you think I'm not real?" Arthur said, eyeing Francis. "This _is_ your mind, after all. Even if I wasn't real, I'd still be likely to act in a way similar to how I do in real life - that is, if your perception of me is similar to how most other people view me. It's all in the mind. But _yes,_ this is the real me."

There was a moment in which Francis and Arthur regarded each other with silent appreciation, and then Francis lay back, his hair splayed out like a golden halo.

"Until we meet again, _mon ami._ "

"Cheerio, mate."


End file.
